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september 10, teachers' day, has a different meaning in the history of china's internet business. it is the anniversary of alibaba group and the birthday of its founder jack ma.

this year, alibaba is 25 years old and jack ma is 60. jack ma spoke again and had new thoughts on alibaba's current situation and future.

"i am proud because i am an alibaba member!" in his internal speeches, jack ma mentioned the word "proud" 11 times. he said that what he was most proud of in the past 25 years was not how many companies he founded, but how much change and value these companies brought to society.

in addition to pride, jack ma also acknowledged the challenges alibaba is facing. “no company can always stay number one in any field, and only competition can make you stronger.”

in less than half a year, the founder spoke twice on the intranet, once for reflection and once for encouragement.it is a fact that alibaba is facing increasing competitive pressure in the new internet cycle. for alibaba people, motivation and reflection are equally important at this special time.

image source: alibaba official website

from the rise of taobao and tmall, to the birth of alipay, and then to the in-depth layout in cloud intelligence, logistics, instant retail and other fields, alibaba is no longer limited to a single e-commerce platform. it is like a traveler, constantly expanding its territory.

this road is full of thorns. in a market surrounded by wolves, alibaba's greatest courage is to keep changing.as jack ma said, "in the past 25 years, we seem to have been entangled, lost, frustrated, and in pain. we gritted our teeth in the struggle, and persisted with a smile, advancing and cherishing our ideals."

especially in the past year, in the face of changes in the global economic situation and intensified industry competition, alibaba has conducted deep self-reflection and adjustments, shifting from pursuing scale growth to focusing on quality improvement, and has carried out drastic reforms from internal management to business innovation.

under the major organizational changes of “1+6+n”, alibaba has become more flexible, the various groups have formed alliances, and have clearer goals and tasks.

taotian group will return to taobao, users and the internet; cloud intelligence group will operate independently; both will be managed by alibaba ceo wu yongming, forming two cores to drive growth;

hema and local life groups changed their leaders, the organization became younger, and the pace of profitability was accelerated;

cainiao withdrew its ipo application. in addition to seeking its own maximum expansion, its most core task is to cooperate with alibaba e-commerce...

one year later, alibaba's businesses are still undergoing transformation and are full of challenges, and may even be surpassed. this road is not destined to be filled with flowers and applause.

how can the core business taotian get back on track and widen the gap with its competitors? how can each business be stabilized in the face of a volatile global market? all of these require jack ma and the management to come up with new solutions in the future.

after 25 years of entrepreneurship, what does jack ma think about alibaba?

in 1999, when most people were still arguing about the internet bubble, jack ma quietly planted the seeds of alibaba.

no one could have foreseen that this seed would take root, sprout, grow branches and leaves, and eventually grow into a towering tree in the next 25 years - a diversified business group that not only changed china but also influenced the world.

failure and mistake are the words that jack ma is least shy about.

before alibaba successfully founded taobao, jack ma had been starting businesses for four years, from china yellow pages to the ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, but all of them failed.

many years later, looking back on his experience, jack ma said, "if you start a business, spend more time thinking about why others fail, and don't think about why others succeed. because there are many reasons for success, but they are often not replicable, while failure is precisely something you don't need to repeat."

jack ma in his early entrepreneurial period. image source: alibaba official website

ten years ago, when jack ma was 15 years old, he looked back at alibaba at the graduation ceremony of tsinghua sem. jack ma said that he had made countless mistakes. alibaba had encountered at least 100 disasters in the first 15 years, but it survived.

in 2018, at the winter davos forum, jack ma once again talked about his thoughts on life and alibaba. "if i had time, i would write "alibaba's 1,001 mistakes", which are some of the most valuable experiences in my life. my wealth is not how much i have achieved, but how much pain and mistakes i have made."

this year marks the 25th anniversary of alibaba’s establishment. almost every step has been under the spotlight, every highlight moment is filled with flowers, and every pressure is magnified.

in 2003, c2c e-commerce was dominated by ebay, and no one thought of stealing ebay's business, but jack ma did. in the first three months, jack ma kept taobao very secret, and only a few alibaba executives knew about it.

porter erisman, former vice president of alibaba, was one of the few executives who knew about the plan at the time. in his book, he recalled the mischievous smile on jack ma's face when he had a private talk with him, and he paused for a long time before saying, "we are going to declare war on ebay."

once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back. ma yun, who went all out, realized his original dream. due to the commission-free service, the number of registered users exceeded 10,000 within less than a month after its launch, thus slowing down ebay's pace of entering china.

the market still remembers the stories that happened around taobao. in 2004, alipay was launched, solving the trust problem that was a bottleneck in online shopping. in 2006, ebay closed its website in china. in 2014, alibaba was listed on the new york stock exchange, and several taobao shop owners were among the eight people who rang the bell.

in 2019, at the 20th anniversary celebration of alibaba, which was like a concert, jack ma personally sang "life in full bloom", which was very lively. it was also at this party that jack ma announced his retirement, and alibaba entered the era of zhang yong at the helm.

jack ma’s retirement is like a watershed moment.it was also during that period that the internet business world was changing unpredictably and the industry entered a stock cycle. alibaba bid farewell to its rapid growth and entered a new round of pressure race.

in april 2021, alibaba was ordered by the state administration for market regulation to rectify its "choose one of two" behavior; in 2023, pinduoduo's market value exceeded alibaba, and alibaba's e-commerce encountered unprecedented challenges; in 2024, one year after alibaba experienced the "1+6+n" organizational change, the drastic changes did not bring much growth, and alibaba is still moving forward in adjustments.

the founder's mission is to step forward and stabilize the morale of the company when it is in trouble. jack ma, who rarely appears in public, has spoken out only a few times when alibaba was in crisis or morale was low.

image source: alibaba wechat official account

two months after the “1+6+n” organizational reform, jack ma pointed out the direction for taobao group at an internal meeting: return to taobao, return to users, and return to the internet.

when pinduoduo's market value surpassed alibaba, jack ma congratulated pinduoduo on alibaba's intranet, but he was more convinced that alibaba would change and reform. "all great companies were born in winter. the era of ai e-commerce has just begun, and it is an opportunity and a challenge for everyone."

on the first anniversary of the reform and restructuring, jack ma shared his views on the company's reform and innovation in a thousand-word article, emphasizing that "we must acknowledge and correct yesterday's problems, and we must reform for the future."

as the reform gradually deepens, the current results have verified the correctness of alibaba’s reform at this stage.the changes in alibaba have changed jack ma’s attitude from “come on, alibaba” to “i’m proud because i’m an alibaba member.”

but alibaba's current situation still worries jack ma. "as internet ai technology surges again and competition in various industries becomes fierce, many of alibaba's businesses are facing challenges and are at risk of being surpassed."

back in 1995, when jack ma touched a keyboard and a computer for the first time and connected to the internet for the first time in his life, he decided to quit his teaching job and start a business.

ma yun is grateful to the times for his entrepreneurial success. "if i was born 10 years earlier or later, i would not have the opportunity of the internet. it is the times that gave me this opportunity."

indeed, there is no era of enterprises, only enterprises of the era. in the tide of the times, the biggest constant for alibaba is change.

alibaba is no longer the alibaba it once was.

opportunities and challengesmore

in the past 20 years, which companies have had the greatest impact on china's economy, china's internet, and even everyone's life?

ali must be one of them.

25 years ago, alibaba chose to start e-commerce business to make "business easy". in order to cultivate the market, alibaba has made great efforts. in terms of e-commerce, payment, logistics, customer service, etc., alibaba is a pioneer, so that the subsequent growth convinced the market - in 2018, alibaba occupied nearly 70% of the chinese e-commerce market.

the first place position is not easy to sit in.

for a long time, with the influx of new players and the popularity of low prices among consumers, alibaba's advantages in the e-commerce industry have been weakened. this phenomenon reached its peak on the day when pinduoduo's market value exceeded that of alibaba.

in terms of market share, alibaba is still the number one, but its share has dropped to around 40%. the gap between alibaba’s core business and its competitors has narrowed, and its competitors are catching up. alibaba’s challenges are visibly increasing.

in the past 25 years, alibaba is no longer the same alibaba as it was back then. during the rapid growth of the internet's golden decade, scale became the main theme of internet giants. in addition to e-commerce business, alibaba's business is numerous and wide-ranging, and it is committed to land grabbing and horizontal expansion.

making the organization serve the strategy and inspiring innovation is alibaba’s challenge after becoming bigger.

in 2015, alibaba first proposed the "big middle office, small front office" strategy to reduce the weight of front-line business. under this organizational design, the big middle office connects various business systems. with the underlying support of the middle office, the front office can be lightly equipped and quickly carry out operations. hema was born out of this.

however, when an enterprise's diversified business reaches a certain scale, the middle platform becomes increasingly bloated, which in turn slows down the pace of business development.

in 2021, alibaba announced the establishment of four business segments, upgrading its middle-office strategy to "diversified governance", with the business president assuming the function of "small ceo".

by 2023, alibaba is still groping forward, making the split more thorough, with one alibaba becoming "six business groups."

in essence, it was still jack ma who led the biggest organizational restructuring in alibaba's history. regarding this new round of transformation in alibaba, jack ma summarized it as: "we are changing bad habits and exchanging vested interests."

when the outside world thought that alibaba's transformation would come to an end, alibaba continued to adjust without stopping. from simply "splitting" to make alibaba "smaller" to splitting and integrating to make alibaba more focused, alibaba also entered the wu yongming era from the zhang yong era.

this is still jack ma's will. he hopes that alibaba can return to efficiency and market first by treating the problems of big companies, and make the company simple and agile again.

the ship adjusted its course and the helmsmen also had new tasks.

in september 2023, wu yongming officially took over as ceo of alibaba group. after taking office as ceo, the power of alibaba gradually concentrated in wu yongming. in the following months, wu yongming held three positions at the same time, serving as director and ceo of alibaba group, chairman and ceo of taotian, and chairman and ceo of cloud intelligence group.

led by the ceo himself, taobao and cloud intelligence are alibaba’s top priorities at the moment.

return to taobao, return to users, return to the internet. after jack ma pointed out the direction for taobao, wu yongming integrated resources inside and outside the site and concentrated his efforts on major tasks in order to do a good job of taobao.

image source: alibaba official website

in order to return to taobao, all e-commerce resources are being returned to taobao, taobao's merchants and products are returning to taobao, and 1688 is also opening a store on taobao; in order to return to users, taobao canceled pre-sales, and launched user-friendly mechanisms such as "refund only", free shipping in xinjiang, and free shipping for 88vip members; in order to return to the internet, taobao restarted the web version.

earlier this year, wu yongming pointed out internally that taobao did not need a new business model. “we have bet too many new directions on taobao, which actually led to our lack of investment and attention in the basic needs of e-commerce.”

while taotian is focusing on its business, alibaba is also reducing the burden on taotian by streamlining its organization and simplifying its processes.for physical retail operations such as gao xin retail, hema and intime that rely on taobao for transfusions, alibaba is reconsidering their future plans.

wu yongming is "focusing on both" taotian and cloud intelligence. the focus of development of another core business, alibaba cloud, has also shifted from pursuing revenue to pursuing profits.

in november last year, wu yongming set the tone for alibaba cloud, saying that alibaba cloud will adhere to the "ai-driven, public cloud first" strategy and develop with ai + cloud computing as the dual driving force. this year, alibaba has made aggressive investments in ai while launching the "largest price cut in history" for cloud products. ai has become the biggest growth point for alibaba cloud.

in addition, the cloud intelligence group no longer pushes for a complete spin-off, and hema and cainiao are also seeking a more appropriate time to go public. judging from the results, alibaba is now getting younger, and each group has entered a new stage of development.

in the new cycle, wu yongming is leading alibaba to cultivate a younger management team and build an alibaba that "tightens the core and reduces non-core burdens."

"no company can always stay number one in any field. only competition can make ourselves stronger and the industry healthier." in alibaba's narrative of the past 25 years, it has been a journey of breaking through barriers, trial and error, reflection, and starting over again.

what direction will alibaba take in the next 25 years?

at the beginning of its establishment, jack ma was determined to build a company that would survive for 102 years.

why 102 years? because it was founded in 1999, and 102 years has spanned exactly three centuries.

as it approaches its 102nd anniversary, alibaba is bound to face tremendous competitive pressure and various challenges.

in the past august, alibaba had three noteworthy developments. first, it officially completed its primary listing in hong kong, becoming a company with dual primary listings on the hong kong stock exchange and the new york stock exchange; second, alibaba completed three years of rectification and entered a new starting point for development; third, its performance rebounded and the reforms began to show results.

on august 15, alibaba announced its first-quarter results for fiscal year 2025. alibaba's revenue for this quarter was 243.24 billion yuan, compared with 234.156 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 4%.

specifically, taobao's online gmv achieved stable growth, with double-digit year-on-year growth in order volume, while revenue fell 1% year-on-year to 113.373 billion yuan. alibaba cloud's quarterly revenue increased 6% to 26.549 billion yuan, with ai-related product revenue achieving triple-digit growth and public cloud business achieving double-digit growth.

in addition to e-commerce and cloud intelligence, the performance of other businesses also shows the phased results of alibaba's reform.

for example, hema achieved off-season profitability for the first time from march to june this year after strategic contraction, cost reduction and efficiency improvement. the new ceo yan xiaolei also set a goal for hema to achieve an annual gmv of 100 billion yuan in three years, an increase of 69% compared to 2023.

for example, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, cainiao's revenue increased by 16% year-on-year to rmb 26.811 billion, mainly from the revenue growth and operational efficiency improvement brought by cross-border logistics fulfillment services;

for example, in the international digital business, the group's revenue increased by 32% year-on-year to 29.293 billion yuan this quarter, exceeding market expectations for eight consecutive quarters, among which the international retail business achieved a high growth rate of 38%;

for example, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, driven by the growth of orders from ele.me and autonavi, the local life group's revenue increased by 12% year-on-year to 16.229 billion yuan.

it must be acknowledged that alibaba's recovery is still accompanied by the pain of reform. as different businesses are still adjusting to the competitive environment, the growth rate of many businesses has slowed down, so alibaba group's revenue growth slowed down this quarter, and actual revenue was 2.6% lower than expected.

“there are not many saviors in the world. build roads on sunny days, make preparations when the weather is good, and buy umbrellas when the sun rises.” this sentence said by jack ma also reminds alibaba to be prepared for adjustments at all times.

as a core business, and one that faces huge challenges and competitive pressure, taotian took the lead in making changes.

when the industry was stuck in the trap of "low prices" and "refunds only", alibaba decided not to be a follower anymore and to explore a route that was more suitable for alibaba's e-commerce.

after 618 this year, at the closed-door meeting of taobao merchants, alibaba made clear the multiple strategic adjustments that will be implemented in the second half of the year. one core change is that taobao has weakened its absolute low-price strategy. since last year, the system of allocating search weights according to "five-star price power" has been weakened, and more emphasis has been placed on allocating according to gmv.

specifically in terms of business indicators, this year taobao's assessment focus has shifted to gmv and aac, and it no longer pursues high dac brought about by low prices.

obviously, alibaba has a more precise understanding of “trade-offs” and is clearer about what it wants and what it doesn’t want.

at the beginning of his business, jack ma hoped that alibaba would become a listed company in 2002. however, the internet bubble crisis hit in that year and alibaba was facing the risk of bankruptcy. at that time, jack ma gave a motivational speech to the team:

my motto was "persevere to the end", even if i had to "kneel down", i had to fall down in the end. at that time, i firmly believed in one thing: if i was in trouble, there were people who were in more trouble than me; if i was sad, my opponent was sadder than me. whoever could endure the most would win.

25 years later, alibaba has survived, completed a quarter of its 102-year goal, and is on the way to the remaining three quarters.

as jack ma said, alibaba people must always remind themselves not to lose themselves under competition and pressure. the reason why alibaba is alibaba is because of its idealistic spirit.

the wind of the times is still blowing. in the past 25 years, alibaba has never been a company that grew under protection. in the next 25 years, alibaba will face many challenges, but will continue to seek innovation and breakthroughs.

(the header image of this article comes from alibaba’s wechat official account.)